CALLING theCOPS ON Diebold in CA: "Scoop" Independent Media

[autorank]

Thank the Lord for "Scoop" Independent Media...If CM won't handle it, then this innovative internatoinal news source will. CA, it's time to say good bye to Diebold and all the other lousy touch screens and counting machines. Do it like the English do (in voting)--paper ballots counted in public!!! Now!!!

Sunday, 25 December 2005, 8:07 am
Opinion: Michael Collins

California Activists Call the Cops on Diebold:
The Campaign to Unite California Election Reformers

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0512/S00246.htm
(segments published w/permission of author)

Movement for legal action against officials who allowed unauthorized software changes to voting machines starts in Northern California. Strong local support.

Special Report by for "Scoop"
Michael Collins

Humboldt Co., CA. A major challenge to election equipment maker Diebold Corporation began in California last week. Dave Berman is a nationally known internet activist who blogs under the name GuvWurld. He is calling on all Californians to ensure election integrity by holding public officials accountable for what he argues are gaping security holes and illegal alterations of Diebold voting machines. One part of the plan asks local activists to demand investigations of unauthorized changes to voting machines by the beleaguered election systems company. The plan has strong local support in a major Diebold territory, Humboldt County. Humboldt County includes Eureka, Arcata and Humboldt State University and is at the very top of the California coastline.

Concerns about Diebold practices in California

Berman cites multiple concerns about Diebold business practices but focuses on the combination of unauthorized installations of Diebold software patches in as many as 17 California counties and the acquiescence of local election officials to that practice, clearly barred by California code. Berman asked the following pointed questions:

Who allowed Humboldt's voting machines to have uncertified software installed in them? Was someone in the Humboldt county elections department complicit in this crime or merely negligent? Is this person still employed by the elections department, and if so, why?

<snip>

U.S Government Accountability report on elections at risk.

GuvWurld's Berman took this information and applied the recent findings of the U.S. Government Accountability Office's Report on electronic voting. The report made clear a number of vital concerns about the reliability of voting technology. The report also provided ammunition for the many election integrity activists who have been making these same points for years. Among the findings, GAO noted that some electronic voting machines can "flip votes" from one candidate to an opponent without any means of auditing to detect fraud. The report found security on voting machines to be particularly lax. When it does exist, vendor personnel too frequently use simple ID names and passwords. GAO also found that some vendors had such poor security, access to one machine allowed access to large networks of machines in operation during elections.
[br />Berman began asking loudly and publishing some very sharp questions when he found out that his home county, Humboldt, was one of the Diebold sites where unauthorized software installations were made.

Berman's campaign aims at having Californians all over the state asking these very same questions to their local officials and district attorneys for a start.

<snip>

The GuvWurld campaign against Diebold and quiescent election officials represents a new aggressive, proactive stance. Dan Ashby of the Voting Rights Task Force (VRTF) told us, "Our most recent meeting concluded with recognition that instead of always reacting defensively to further inroads on electoral integrity, we need to come up with some full time proactive strategies."This realign or resign campaign directed at election officials in the Diebold counties seems to me a very good place to start." Activist groups like the CPEN and VRTF are now determining if and how they will participate with the GuvWurld campaign. Ashby is hoping that activist pressure will convince Secretary of State McPherson to refuse to recertify Diebold's DRE touch screens in California. He argues that, "To reward this worst-of-class, repeat offender by granting an extended franchise in the nation's largest voting market - after all the Diebold dirt that has floated to the surface these past few years - is just unthinkable."

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Wow!!! That Ashby from CA really nails it. "I've got a new attitude" is obviously going to be the theme song for the election integrity/election fraud movement in the new year. It's our time!!! Make it happen!!!

Let's all support the GuvWurld campaign to unite CA activists and get the voting laws enforced.